Progress in Reducing Salt and Enhancing Umami in Condiments

Abstract

Condiments are necessary to improve the flavor of foods and are a major source of salt intake for people. Excess salt intake can be a health risk, but reducing salt can reduce the umami and taste of foods, thus reducing product quality. This paper reviews the technical strategies for salt reduction while ensuring saltiness and umami as well as their harmony. The salt reduction strategies include reducing the amount of salt, using salt substitutes and enhancing saltiness perception. The umami enhancement strategies include adding yeast extracts, umami peptides, umami amino acids and peptide derivatives. Besides, salt reduction and umami enhancement can be achieved by using lactic acid bacteria, Maillard reaction intermediates, flavor enhancers and taste-active peptides. The application of the salt reduction and umami enhancement strategies will promote the development of the condiment industry, but these strategies have the problems of insufficient basic research, few practical applications, narrow application scope and high production cost. At present, it is difficult to solve these problems. In this paper, the basic principles and characteristics of the strategies for salt reduction and umami enhancement in condiments and the current problems existing in this field of research are reviewed in detail. Future development directions are put forward in order to provide a reference for research on salt reduction and umami enhancement of condiments.

Keywords

• condiments; salt reduction; umami enhancement; applied technology; perception enhancement